October 23, 2024 • 15 mins
Can contentment truly be the greatest form of wealth? Inspired by the wisdom of Socrates, I embark on a personal journey to unravel the pressures of modern life. Through a tapestry of personal anecdotes, I explore how social media algorithms weave illusions of success that tempt us with the allure of bigger houses, faster cars, and dream vacations. I open up about my own curated feed of cats and car mods, and the conscious effort it takes to focus on what genuinely matters. Together, we grapple with feelings of envy and challenge the notion that success must mirror the glossy images we consume daily. Could it be that the societal standards of success are mere illusions crafted to keep us in a consumer-driven mindset?
Join me as we question the real value behind these aspirations, pondering whether true happiness lies in the simple joys of life rather than material possessions. Imagine if contentment was about more than just the things we have—it was about appreciating the roof over our heads and the peace in our own journey. We dissect the idea of contentment, asking if it's possible to redefine happiness through the lens of our everyday lives. So, as I share my candid reflections, let's walk this path together and explore the profound satisfaction found in life's smaller pleasures, challenging the relentless pursuit of more.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Wes (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Accordio West
podcast, where being a man childand doing hood red things with
your friends doesn't sound alltoo bad, as I continue to, as I
continue on my never endingjourney of self-improvement to
be a better person than I wasyesterday.
(00:22):
What better way to do this thanwith the help of a quote from
Socrates?
And the quote today Issomething simple Contentment is
natural wealth.
Now, contentment is naturalwealth, so they say right.
(00:44):
However, this world would trulyhave you thinking otherwise.
Um, I am also often knocked overhere with uh, cars that look
better than mine, houses thatare bigger than mine, vacation
blogs to places, uh, I want togo.
Don't get me started on socialmedia.
(01:11):
The algorithms that they haveis built for tough man.
It can be very beneficial toyour mental health if you know
how to use it, if you are usingit the right way, or very
detrimental, uh, low key.
(01:32):
You know what mine is, my, my,what I see on my fees.
Cats because my wife has a cat.
Cars and how people tune them,the, the specific cars that I
have.
So I'm not really hit too muchover the head with the oh, the
bentley's and shit like that andmusic stuff like my shit is
(01:56):
love.
I can be on that bitch all day.
But I do understand that myalgorithm, my algorithm and my
explore page is different fromothers.
It's based off of what you seekout, and I purposely try not to
seek out those things because Iwould like to stay content in
what I'm doing.
If you're constantly seeing whatyou see, it's impossible, but
(02:19):
you know, and when you're seeingthat stuff or you, you know
you're around, uh, overachievers, or you have them in your life
and you know it's, it's quiteit's hard not to feel a certain
way.
You know, like I'm only human,like it's going to happen.
(02:41):
You know I, I fall subject tothe feelings of, of envy, and
you know you human, it's not.
There's nothing wrong withbeing envious.
It's all about if you're actingon that enviousness.
Did I say that, right?
If you're acting on that, andeven if you're acting on it, is
(03:01):
it a positive thing or is it anegative thing?
Like you're only human,sometimes you will act on it.
But what do you do?
There's a light of fire underyour ass to do something, or you
do.
You do something like you knowwhat.
I'm gonna go rob thatmotherfucker envy.
You know.
But I have feelings.
(03:24):
I do fall, uh, subject tofeelings of envy or feeling like
I'm not doing enough in my lifeto achieve these things that I
see, or dreams that I've always.
You know, those dreams of like,oh, when I get older I'm going
to have a big house.
When we driving this, when wemaking this, you know amount of
money.
You know you're saying thesethings when you don't know how
(03:44):
the world works.
And then when you get out thereand you see how the world works
, you're like what damn,everybody else is doing it,
everybody else getting it.
How are they getting it?
You know you're not contentbecause you see that it's
possible, right?
You know that it's possiblebecause you see it, or so you
think you see it could be allsmoke and mirrors once again.
(04:06):
Social media you know whatconspiracy theory, west time, I
think.
I think some of this shit isall employed to get us to be
consumers, stay consumers,continue to spend money and keep
the the, the capitalist ideaand and and values alive and to
(04:32):
keep things going.
That's how I feel sometimes,because if you was truly content
, would you even worry about anyof that shit?
You got a house, you got aplace to live you got.
You can pay your bills, you canlive comfortably it's outside
the living comfortably oractually having shelter and food
where it gets tricky.
(04:55):
You know you want to beentertained, you want to
enjoying the fruits of yourlabor have changed since, uh,
from a hundred years ago.
You know, enjoying the fruitsof your labor was more or less
like yo, I labored.
Crops are growing.
I'm enjoying that because I getto eat and live another day,
(05:19):
now that most of us aren'tfarming and, you know, hunting
for our food and stuff like that, it's like.
Enjoying the fruits of yourlabor now means like yo, I got
to go to a concert, I got to buythese shoes, I was able to take
a vacation.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor.
I'm definitely not saying don'tdo that.
Definitely enjoy the fruits ofyour labor.
(05:41):
But you know, is there a limitto what certain people can do?
Is there a baseline?
Should everyone have a baseline?
Nonetheless, we're getting offof spending and shitting.
Capitalism, being content orhaving contentment, seems to be
(06:02):
an impossible thing to master inthis country.
In a sense, not being contentdoes allow for that
determination to set in, toachieve those things like I was
just saying like the vacationand stuff like that, or whatever
have you, or just a betterlifestyle, whatever have you, or
(06:26):
just a better lifestyle like itallows you to it.
It allows determination to setand to accomplish goals.
Uh, put yourself in bettersituations.
Um, be a good, outstandingmember of society.
Uh, be something to look up toall those things.
Right, there is somepositiveness and not being
content of society.
Be something to look up to allthose things.
(06:46):
Right, there is somepositiveness in not being
content.
But if you are content,sometimes that none of that, it
doesn't allow for any of thatstuff to happen and you don't
feel that, you don't get thatfeeling like the, the, you know
(07:09):
the.
I guess you don't get thatfeeling of worth.
I'm not saying me, no, I amsaying me because I have, I have
had those moments where it'sjust like yo, what am I?
Like?
Society glamorizes or rewards,like the things like money, you
know, possessions and lifestyle,so you're content.
(07:29):
Sometimes you're not reachingthat tier where people begin to,
you know, see you and treat youdifferently.
It's weird, I wish it wasn'tlike that and a part I'll be
lying if a part of me, if I saida part of me, doesn't actually
look at that stuff sometimes to,dare I say, not emulate, but
(07:50):
just like yo, what is thatreally like?
And there's been times where Ireached a certain threshold I'm
like, oh, this shit ain't shit.
And then I go back to likebeing, not being.
I go back to my personalregularly scheduled programming.
For an example, as I got olderand started working and making
(08:13):
my own money, the coveted thingto do in high school was like yo
, how was your shoes?
What shoes did you get?
Did you get the new Nike?
Did you get the new J's?
This, this and that, blah, blah, blah.
It meant something in school.
So I get outside of school, I'mable to do that.
It means nothing to me now.
(08:33):
So it's like that type ofcontentment, like what if I was
still a rule, but I got to dothis because I never know who
will see me?
And it's just like like no onesees me, not in a bad way, but
just like I don't.
Even I'm an adult that doesn'tmove like that.
And even before I was married,the type of woman I wanted to
attract or the type of uh circleI wanted to attract and give a
(08:56):
kid, they didn't give a shitabout that anyway.
Yeah, your shoes have to beclean and shit like that.
They couldn't just be anything.
But yeah, they're not.
They're not.
They're not really checking ifit's the newest or maybe they
were, I don't really care.
But However, I do believe thisis where the quote touches home
(09:17):
for me, and hopefully manyothers Like being able to get to
a point where you are contentwith where you're at, or maybe
the limit that you can reachwhen it comes to society, and
definitely when it comes to your.
Yeah, when it comes to society,because it ultimately affects
(09:37):
your, your mental health,affects your well-being, your
mental health, it affects yourwell-being.
Um.
So in this I never reallythought about, I thought about
contentment, right, um, andthere's still some things I have
a hard time with being contentabout, like yo, like maybe you
(10:00):
should, just this should be yourbaseline, and you move on to
something else.
Or this is where you should,this is where you should, this
is, this is you, this is whatyou're going to be.
And then I struggle with theworld.
Motherfucker, you got one lifeto live.
Why live the life of thinkingthat if you could have, would
(10:20):
have, should have, my?
Where would you be If you couldhave, would have, should have,
like, where would you be?
So that's a for me, that's adaily internal struggle where
sometimes it affects meexternally.
(10:48):
Like college graduate, sometimesI think like yo, how far do I
go or how far do I reach in myprofession before I start to
cruise control?
Am I allowed to cruise control?
And then inflation happened andI'm like, uh, I definitely
can't.
It's weird because society hasforced me not to be content
because of like, I got to acertain point and I'm like, okay
, and then it was like thatpoint's not good enough anymore,
(11:08):
especially for where I live.
And I'm not saying money iseverything, but money is a a
great tool to have for comfort,and I typically try to spend the
money on comfort more thananything Like.
When I say comfort than anythinglike, when I say comfort, I
(11:28):
mean like making sure, makingsure that you know, when I'm at
home, the flow of my home and my, my life is, uh, it's good,
it's a good, it's an easy flow.
And what I mean by that?
Like simple shit like yo, awine fridge by my coffee bar and
shit like that.
(11:48):
Like what am I really workingtowards?
I do stuff of like maintainingthe house or doing things to
improve more than I treat myselftraditionally like I used to
like with shoes or video gamesand stuff like that.
So, in a sense, I reached alevel of contentment and certain
parts of my life, but the onething that I haven't or haven't
(12:12):
figured out yet is my career.
And yeah, there's the, there'sthe um, there's the parody of uh
like yo career money, but it'smore or less the ability to earn
(12:37):
the money when I need to earnthe money and less about I need
to earn the money now, if thatmakes any sense.
I want to be in a situation andhave myself said I was like yo.
If I needed to, I can and Ithink I'm near.
However, in order for certaincomforts to happen, I need a
(12:59):
little bit more money.
So, for me, the contentment thatI struggle with is not for
possessions and not necessarilylifestyle, because it doesn't
come with the possessions or thelifestyle that you would get
with possessions.
It comes with the yo.
My 401k is straight, I gotenough money in the bank for an
(13:22):
emergency.
I got enough money in the bankfor an emergency.
Short, random, unexpectedemergencies won't hurt me.
And I'm eating good food.
When I say good food,non-processed food, all that
shit costs a lot of money, andthat's what I mean by like
comfortable and lifestyle andlike what the fuck am I working
(13:45):
for if I can't even have that?
So there's a lot of shit I kindof just put to the side like,
yeah sure, I want a pair ofprada america's cups.
The shits look nice, I will getthem.
However, there are things thatare first on that list.
I am content without havingthem, and so all these are met.
I'm content without ever havingthem If I actually come on,
live a comfortable life and feelgood.
(14:08):
I learned at an early, early age.
Now I learned in my early 20sthat like those things don't
make you feel good when you'resad or when you're depressed.
Because I went through a momentof that.
So not a huge moment.
But you know college, you knowshit changing, you know blah,
blah, blah.
Yeah, I went through moments ofthat.
(14:30):
So, hell yeah, contentment isnatural wealth.
However, don't be content ineverything.
Be content in the mindset, yourgoals, be practical.
Don't join the rat race.
I ain't going to say go withthe program.
(14:53):
I'm not going to say go withthe flow, but be true to
yourself and you will find theflow.
On that note, thank everybodyfor tuning in um be content,
don't keep up with the Joneses.
See you next time you.
Welcome back to another episode of the Accordio West
podcast, where being a man childand doing hood red things with
your friends doesn't sound alltoo bad, as I continue to, as I
continue on my never endingjourney of self-improvement to
be a better person than I wasyesterday.
(00:22):
What better way to do this thanwith the help of a quote from
Socrates?
And the quote today Issomething simple Contentment is
natural wealth.
Now, contentment is naturalwealth, so they say right.
(00:44):
However, this world would trulyhave you thinking otherwise.
Um, I am also often knocked overhere with uh, cars that look
better than mine, houses thatare bigger than mine, vacation
blogs to places, uh, I want togo.
Don't get me started on socialmedia.
(01:11):
The algorithms that they haveis built for tough man.
It can be very beneficial toyour mental health if you know
how to use it, if you are usingit the right way, or very
detrimental, uh, low key.
(01:32):
You know what mine is, my, my,what I see on my fees.
Cats because my wife has a cat.
Cars and how people tune them,the, the specific cars that I
have.
So I'm not really hit too muchover the head with the oh, the
bentley's and shit like that andmusic stuff like my shit is
(01:56):
love.
I can be on that bitch all day.
But I do understand that myalgorithm, my algorithm and my
explore page is different fromothers.
It's based off of what you seekout, and I purposely try not to
seek out those things because Iwould like to stay content in
what I'm doing.
If you're constantly seeing whatyou see, it's impossible, but
(02:19):
you know, and when you're seeingthat stuff or you, you know
you're around, uh, overachievers, or you have them in your life
and you know it's, it's quiteit's hard not to feel a certain
way.
You know, like I'm only human,like it's going to happen.
(02:41):
You know I, I fall subject tothe feelings of, of envy, and
you know you human, it's not.
There's nothing wrong withbeing envious.
It's all about if you're actingon that enviousness.
Did I say that, right?
If you're acting on that, andeven if you're acting on it, is
(03:01):
it a positive thing or is it anegative thing?
Like you're only human,sometimes you will act on it.
But what do you do?
There's a light of fire underyour ass to do something, or you
do.
You do something like you knowwhat.
I'm gonna go rob thatmotherfucker envy.
You know.
But I have feelings.
(03:24):
I do fall, uh, subject tofeelings of envy or feeling like
I'm not doing enough in my lifeto achieve these things that I
see, or dreams that I've always.
You know, those dreams of like,oh, when I get older I'm going
to have a big house.
When we driving this, when wemaking this, you know amount of
money.
You know you're saying thesethings when you don't know how
(03:44):
the world works.
And then when you get out thereand you see how the world works
, you're like what damn,everybody else is doing it,
everybody else getting it.
How are they getting it?
You know you're not contentbecause you see that it's
possible, right?
You know that it's possiblebecause you see it, or so you
think you see it could be allsmoke and mirrors once again.
(04:06):
Social media you know whatconspiracy theory, west time, I
think.
I think some of this shit isall employed to get us to be
consumers, stay consumers,continue to spend money and keep
the the, the capitalist ideaand and and values alive and to
(04:32):
keep things going.
That's how I feel sometimes,because if you was truly content
, would you even worry about anyof that shit?
You got a house, you got aplace to live you got.
You can pay your bills, you canlive comfortably it's outside
the living comfortably oractually having shelter and food
where it gets tricky.
(04:55):
You know you want to beentertained, you want to
enjoying the fruits of yourlabor have changed since, uh,
from a hundred years ago.
You know, enjoying the fruitsof your labor was more or less
like yo, I labored.
Crops are growing.
I'm enjoying that because I getto eat and live another day,
(05:19):
now that most of us aren'tfarming and, you know, hunting
for our food and stuff like that, it's like.
Enjoying the fruits of yourlabor now means like yo, I got
to go to a concert, I got to buythese shoes, I was able to take
a vacation.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor.
I'm definitely not saying don'tdo that.
Definitely enjoy the fruits ofyour labor.
(05:41):
But you know, is there a limitto what certain people can do?
Is there a baseline?
Should everyone have a baseline?
Nonetheless, we're getting offof spending and shitting.
Capitalism, being content orhaving contentment, seems to be
(06:02):
an impossible thing to master inthis country.
In a sense, not being contentdoes allow for that
determination to set in, toachieve those things like I was
just saying like the vacationand stuff like that, or whatever
have you, or just a betterlifestyle, whatever have you, or
(06:26):
just a better lifestyle like itallows you to it.
It allows determination to setand to accomplish goals.
Uh, put yourself in bettersituations.
Um, be a good, outstandingmember of society.
Uh, be something to look up toall those things.
Right, there is somepositiveness and not being
content of society.
Be something to look up to allthose things.
(06:46):
Right, there is somepositiveness in not being
content.
But if you are content,sometimes that none of that, it
doesn't allow for any of thatstuff to happen and you don't
feel that, you don't get thatfeeling like the, the, you know
(07:09):
the.
I guess you don't get thatfeeling of worth.
I'm not saying me, no, I amsaying me because I have, I have
had those moments where it'sjust like yo, what am I?
Like?
Society glamorizes or rewards,like the things like money, you
know, possessions and lifestyle,so you're content.
(07:29):
Sometimes you're not reachingthat tier where people begin to,
you know, see you and treat youdifferently.
It's weird, I wish it wasn'tlike that and a part I'll be
lying if a part of me, if I saida part of me, doesn't actually
look at that stuff sometimes to,dare I say, not emulate, but
(07:50):
just like yo, what is thatreally like?
And there's been times where Ireached a certain threshold I'm
like, oh, this shit ain't shit.
And then I go back to likebeing, not being.
I go back to my personalregularly scheduled programming.
For an example, as I got olderand started working and making
(08:13):
my own money, the coveted thingto do in high school was like yo
, how was your shoes?
What shoes did you get?
Did you get the new Nike?
Did you get the new J's?
This, this and that, blah, blah, blah.
It meant something in school.
So I get outside of school, I'mable to do that.
It means nothing to me now.
(08:33):
So it's like that type ofcontentment, like what if I was
still a rule, but I got to dothis because I never know who
will see me?
And it's just like like no onesees me, not in a bad way, but
just like I don't.
Even I'm an adult that doesn'tmove like that.
And even before I was married,the type of woman I wanted to
attract or the type of uh circleI wanted to attract and give a
(08:56):
kid, they didn't give a shitabout that anyway.
Yeah, your shoes have to beclean and shit like that.
They couldn't just be anything.
But yeah, they're not.
They're not.
They're not really checking ifit's the newest or maybe they
were, I don't really care.
But However, I do believe thisis where the quote touches home
(09:17):
for me, and hopefully manyothers Like being able to get to
a point where you are contentwith where you're at, or maybe
the limit that you can reachwhen it comes to society, and
definitely when it comes to your.
Yeah, when it comes to society,because it ultimately affects
(09:37):
your, your mental health,affects your well-being, your
mental health, it affects yourwell-being.
Um.
So in this I never reallythought about, I thought about
contentment, right, um, andthere's still some things I have
a hard time with being contentabout, like yo, like maybe you
(10:00):
should, just this should be yourbaseline, and you move on to
something else.
Or this is where you should,this is where you should, this
is, this is you, this is whatyou're going to be.
And then I struggle with theworld.
Motherfucker, you got one lifeto live.
Why live the life of thinkingthat if you could have, would
(10:20):
have, should have, my?
Where would you be If you couldhave, would have, should have,
like, where would you be?
So that's a for me, that's adaily internal struggle where
sometimes it affects meexternally.
(10:48):
Like college graduate, sometimesI think like yo, how far do I
go or how far do I reach in myprofession before I start to
cruise control?
Am I allowed to cruise control?
And then inflation happened andI'm like, uh, I definitely
can't.
It's weird because society hasforced me not to be content
because of like, I got to acertain point and I'm like, okay
, and then it was like thatpoint's not good enough anymore,
(11:08):
especially for where I live.
And I'm not saying money iseverything, but money is a a
great tool to have for comfort,and I typically try to spend the
money on comfort more thananything Like.
When I say comfort than anythinglike, when I say comfort, I
(11:28):
mean like making sure, makingsure that you know, when I'm at
home, the flow of my home and my, my life is, uh, it's good,
it's a good, it's an easy flow.
And what I mean by that?
Like simple shit like yo, awine fridge by my coffee bar and
shit like that.
(11:48):
Like what am I really workingtowards?
I do stuff of like maintainingthe house or doing things to
improve more than I treat myselftraditionally like I used to
like with shoes or video gamesand stuff like that.
So, in a sense, I reached alevel of contentment and certain
parts of my life, but the onething that I haven't or haven't
(12:12):
figured out yet is my career.
And yeah, there's the, there'sthe um, there's the parody of uh
like yo career money, but it'smore or less the ability to earn
(12:37):
the money when I need to earnthe money and less about I need
to earn the money now, if thatmakes any sense.
I want to be in a situation andhave myself said I was like yo.
If I needed to, I can and Ithink I'm near.
However, in order for certaincomforts to happen, I need a
(12:59):
little bit more money.
So, for me, the contentment thatI struggle with is not for
possessions and not necessarilylifestyle, because it doesn't
come with the possessions or thelifestyle that you would get
with possessions.
It comes with the yo.
My 401k is straight, I gotenough money in the bank for an
(13:22):
emergency.
I got enough money in the bankfor an emergency.
Short, random, unexpectedemergencies won't hurt me.
And I'm eating good food.
When I say good food,non-processed food, all that
shit costs a lot of money, andthat's what I mean by like
comfortable and lifestyle andlike what the fuck am I working
(13:45):
for if I can't even have that?
So there's a lot of shit I kindof just put to the side like,
yeah sure, I want a pair ofprada america's cups.
The shits look nice, I will getthem.
However, there are things thatare first on that list.
I am content without havingthem, and so all these are met.
I'm content without ever havingthem If I actually come on,
live a comfortable life and feelgood.
(14:08):
I learned at an early, early age.
Now I learned in my early 20sthat like those things don't
make you feel good when you'resad or when you're depressed.
Because I went through a momentof that.
So not a huge moment.
But you know college, you knowshit changing, you know blah,
blah, blah.
Yeah, I went through moments ofthat.
(14:30):
So, hell yeah, contentment isnatural wealth.
However, don't be content ineverything.
Be content in the mindset, yourgoals, be practical.
Don't join the rat race.
I ain't going to say go withthe program.
(14:53):
I'm not going to say go withthe flow, but be true to
yourself and you will find theflow.
On that note, thank everybodyfor tuning in um be content,
don't keep up with the Joneses.
See you next time you.
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